Planting Apple Seeds: Resting on the Everlasting Arms of our Lord

"The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

-Deuteronomy 33:27

This is Hillary's favorite Bible verse. One of her favorite qualities about God is that He is everlasting--a really mind blowing quality when you stop and think about what everlasting means. She led my Bible study with Jordan my freshman year at Eastern and passed away a year ago today.

There are SO many things to say about Hillary. She was inspiring. Bubbly. Had a huge heart for the lost. Was real (in more than one way... haha shout-out to the R.E.A.L. Women). Godly. Gave the best hugs. Was my zombie mom on spring break. Genuinely cared about everyone. This doesn't really even begin to touch the surface of Hillary, but I think it gives a decent start to understanding her.

She taught me so many things. She didn't just teach me through words what a Godly relationship looks like, she lived it out. She taught me Jesus was radical, and that completely blew my mind. I was taken aback when she said that we should be radical because Jesus was. I see myself learning from her still, to this day.

One of the best and most memorable Bible studies I've ever been to was when we talked about Heaven. I'm pretty sure the topic that night wasn't necessarily supposed to be Heaven, but we somehow got there. At that point, I had seen Hillary excited, but she was at least 10 times more excited when she started talking about Heaven. She was giddy! It was great. I left that night with a better eternal perspective, more desire to know the Lord and what He had in store for me, and a book recommendation (Heaven by Randy Alcorn -- I just started it and it's fantastic). That's just one of the zillion things she and Jordan taught me freshman year. I couldn't have asked for a better pair of leaders. Only God could have pulled them together and then placed me in their group.

I remember at the memorial service we had for her on the first day of school, we sang "Our God" by Chris Tomlin. We sang, "Our God is greater, our God is stronger. God you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power."

Singing that song in a time like that just really struck me. In my opinion, you'll only find joy and worship during a trial in a Christian community--people whose hearts are being captivated by Christ. People that understand and trust the words when it says later in the song, "If our God is for us then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what could stand against?" (see Romans 8:31).

Hillary was one person that understood that. She recognized that there is a God and He is holy, without flaw. That we were created to have fellowship with God, but that fellowship was broken because of our sin. That God saw this brokenness and restored it Himself, because nothing we could ever do on our own-no amount of good deeds, no church going, nor how "good" we are-would ever be able to restore this relationship. So He sent His son Jesus to earth to live a life that was without sin and die on the cross, taking God's wrath when we are the ones that deserve it. And if we place our faith in Jesus and believe that He not only died, but rose again, we will have everlasting life in Heaven.

That's how I know Hillary is in Heaven. That's how I know I'll see her again one day. And that's why my brothers and sisters in Christ and I can sing songs like "Our God" and "It Is Well With My Soul" in times of sorrow.